CeBIT: Move & view music and video, with Nero

I had an interesting chat with Nero software today. (Not, if I'm honest, a statement I ever expected to write).

Email this to a friend

I had an interesting chat with Nero software today. (Not, if I'm honest, a statement I ever expected to write).

Like most people, Nero to me means disc burning software. (And love, I suppose, but that's a different Nero.)

It's a problem Nero recognises. And, to its credit, the company understands that burning CDs and DVDs is unlikely to be a viable business model for too much longer. The days of the one-trick pony are numbered.

Nero's solution? It wants to become the default interface for all your media, on all your devices. It launched Move It earlier this year - a software package that purports to do just that. Visit Digital World for more on all things home entertainment.

Today, Nero told me that it has added nVidia CUDA acceleration to it's package. Well, er, great, said I. What does that do then? Apparently, this allows the software to utilise the GPU or CPU (or both) to transcode and move all kinds of media files to all kinds of devices. And here's the important bit: it does it quickly, and lightly, and you don't even have to understand the process - it just works. There's a GUI and everything (and if you don't know what a GUI is, the point is, you don't have to).

Certainly, the demonstration we saw was impressive. DRM-permitting, you can shift movies and music from mobile, to laptop, to media player, to desktop. And it's all virtually a single-click process.

What I really like, is what it represents - a simple solution to a technolgy problem. In essence: normal, non-techie consumers have a ton of media that they want to access anywhere, but vendors and manufacturers favour different, proprietary file formats. So in order to access music, movies, e-books and the rest, you have to be a technical genius.

Not if Nero gets its way.

There is one, massive caveat, however. In order to do the slick, moving and shaking, your tracks and clips have to be DRM free. So either the media industry has to wise up and chill out, or you need to get techie again.